bantayan and malapascua

it was quite unexpected fun really. i flew to cebu not expecting much, but with the kindness and generosity of the people it was very enjoyable and blessed. lots of laughter and lots of pictures. our snorkeling gears were utilized to the full as we checked out the coral reefs of the two islands. silly, harebrained ideas with jan as willing victim. tee-hee!

thank you, ray for arranging most of the trip.
thank you, jerry for being our kaban ng yaman, official haggler and PR person.
thank you, andy for the cheap rates and the great service.
thank you, tito peter for being jan's boyfriend and teaching us about bombs.
thank you, tita susan for the free dinners and the big discount on the lodging and showing us around ogtong cave resort. it is truly a wonderful place.
thank you, ray, jerry, mia, miah, ninin and jan for sharing the trip with me. i had such a great time and so did dixie. i haven't waken up that early for three consecutive days in quite a while. just to see the sunrise spectacle that decided to be quiet the days we were there. still lack of sleep but abundance of food and friends... always something worth having.

like what dixie said... let the pictures do the talking. soon. ;p

DDE #3

i'm a month old today!

i spent the last few days with m.angie and her friends at malapascua and bantayan island. most of the time i was just inside my bag because i might get wet. but it was fun riding the boat, though a little scary. i might need to go back to the shop if i got wet. so i'd rather be not wet.

i've discovered two new ways to make use of my abilities. i've always known about my continuous shots feature but this was the trip where i had the most fun with it. my models did a lot of funny poses so i took one pixie after another. it's funny when you see the results. like a cartoon missing a few frames... well that was it actually. hehe! t.jan was the funniest person during the trip which was quite new. must be the fresh bantayan air. hehe!

we also played with my shutter speed. since it was already dark, m.angie and ther friends tried to write their name with light. and it was so spectacular! except m.angie took a long time to learn it. t.ninin did it quickly and so did t.ray. t.mia and t.miah had a hard time as well... but they seemed to enjoy a lot.

there is so much to tell about the trip but i think my pixies will do a better job at it. i'm just glad to have spent my first month being fully utilized. there is so much to learn about me! and i'd like to know that about myself too.

i wonder how the next few months would go with me? i hope it's as exciting and adventurous. :)

kadayawan 2007: photo documentation

it is that time of the year again when the city of davao comes alive with people and activities. streets are colored with fruits selling cheap and tasting sweet. i've probably devoured 10 kilos worth of mangosteen in five days!

this year was complete attendance and more, as friends from manila flew over to enjoy our yearly tradition of a crazy August weekend. it may be quite a while since another gathering of this number may happen. if that be the case, it was a fitting swan song for a tradition that brings the barkadayawan/fuhkers (fun house kids) together.

friday at pawikan sanctuary in punta dumalag, matina.
thanks to sherwin for allowing us to tag along. :)

lesbian lovers in their bikinis sitting on the painful dead corals
just to have a nice photo shoot.
nice backs, girls!

welcome to davao, tubero!
fuhktastic four with shiva and dave at the imago concert.
huwag niyo na hanapin yung imago, noh! kami ang bida.

yummy slipper lobster in garlic sauce at pards ilustre.
chris and edward, our waiters, must have enjoyed serving us
as we threw hirits back and forth at each other. tatit has video of crazy lunch. abangan!

huli kami! because we were so noisy we were caught in the net with the squid and lobster.

aldevinco is for photo shoots. the wares for sale are our props.

it would have tatit's first street dancing. unfortunately, it ended early this year. darn. we were able to get pictures of the dancers commissioned by marco polo though. pretty little lass, ain't she?

surprise despedida for tatit who is going to netherlands.
the whole barkadayawan/fuhkers friends were present. and guests, too!
thanks to kitoy, morten harket and mon salas for the belly-aching laughter ;p.
neuken in the keuken. badankt!

punta ng inamong falls! look at that beauty.
arakan valley, entering through marahan in davao city.

trekkers in the midst of cogon!
seedlings donated for the rehabilitation of the place.

sugarfree to cap a tiring day.

i repeat: THE BEST DAVAO CONCERT EVER!!!

at least for me, anyway.

i have totally vindicated my 11-year old self for sleeping during their concert back when we were still living in angeles city! yeah, stupid me. totally fell asleep in the midst of blaring music and a wild crowd. and woke up right smack in the middle of "salamat."

anyway, it was good i was already able to watch "tulad ng dati" before their davao gig because i was totally pumped out to listen to the great live music of the dawn.

but i had to get over one hurdle of the day first. my mother was godmother to a wedding, so i offered to accompany her for the afternoon so i get to wear my princess dress (which i willing victim to kaladkarin's masterful manipulation of thrift shop shopping) and eat a free dinner at apo view.

after having my chow, i go from princess.... to frog... er... rock fan...

...and was all set for the concert. (i didn't even stay to watch the program. freeloadin' is fuuun!)

i proceeded to gaisano mall to meet up with the gang. 1017 was playing, a davao local vocal (mwahaha! private joke) that i enjoy listening to. unfortunately, i only caught their last two songs. they didn't even give the guitarist a chance to do his antics. after them it was G-String. not a band i was entirely happy to have playing at a night i was out for the music. so my pals just poured our attention to the beer tower. which is another story all together.

the whole time we were waiting for jerry to come already. he would be coming straight for marbel to the concert. none of the girls wanted to be bothered from watching the dawn just to give him tickets. with a little stroke of luck though, jerry came JUST IN TIME for the dawn. right smack in time, that he didn't even get a chance to sit down because tatit and i already dragged him to the front (leaving my relak-lang uyab behind)

and so i, along with my rock buddies jerry and tatit, claim the honor that we were the first kapalmuks to go up front and jiggy from first song to the last. hah! so there! i crown us three the king and queens of courage and bravery (or in bisaya, baga nawung award). deadma to embarrassment. listening to rock legends in davao city is rare and has to be enjoyed with much passion and gusto! so hah. deadma. keber. what-eyber.

syeeyt. ang galing nila. jett definitely has the most distinctive rock vocal in recent history of band music. close your eyes, or even one ear... you know it's jett singing. and francis is guitar magician. look at those fingers fly over those strings. and buddy... honestly, i couldn't really hear much of the bass, because i was so mesmerized by jett and francis... but buddy has always been one of my favorite bassists. and uhm i had a crush on him back on e-heads days... mabuhay kang chavacano ka! and jb... i could only see his hair behind the drums... pero mehn... steeeeegg! mean drums, pare!!!

and they covered U2 and simple minds and some other new wave songs. asteeeegggg! ang saya. the dawn doing U2. pareho lang kaming rock fans after all. this was when more people joined us in the front. drunk guys moshing can be pretty scary (except if its jerry). thank god, i'm good at eluding danger. hehe!

me, tat and kitoy with the band (feeeeeliiiiinggg!), jerry behind the cam.

then they sang "enveloped ideas," the crowd really went wild. one even got accosted by the police for throwing a plastic cup to the stage (which he might have stolen from either jerry or tat who placed their beers on the speaker while dancing). and tat has evidence of how wild in her camera.

when they did "salamat" i was near-panic because that meant the end of the night. no! no! no! you can't stop yet. it's only 1130! noooh. but they did. when the lights dimmed on the stage... most of the crowd were on their way out. we, on the other hand, still had to finish the rest of the second beer tower.

it was then that we realized that jerry had not eaten and had downed so much beer already. the slur in his speech was funny that we forced him to have dinner and sober up in gerry's grill.

the band was there! the band was there! but i was tyope the whole time. i so wanted to go up to them and thank them for such a great time. instead i just told my story of penis-fencing flatworms and chastity-belting butterflies.

finally, when they seemed to be on their way home, a sense of urgency rushed up to me that i was only 20% tyope to go up to them. but kang had more courage and got my camera and asked the dawn if we can have our picture taken with them. of course, they were more than kind to oblige. aaaaahhhhh. inakbayan ako ni jett! aaaaaah. piniktyuran kami ni francis. aaaaahhhh!

after the whole thing, we went back to our seats. my knees were shaking so bad. i couldn't even kneel on the chair to grab a piece of tokwa. sheyt. what i felt that night was somewhat similar to what i felt when i met neil gaiman after lining up for seven hours at rockwell. this was less hassle and more simple. but this is one of those days when i'm such a fan girl! (the funny thing is... i don't own a single album of the dawn. nakakahiya. buti na lang meron si jan. hehe!)

i had such a good time. i hope they come back soon!!!

(realization this morning: iba ang dating ng concert when there aren't shrieking fangirls around. the shouting during the concert was low pitched instead of tinny.)

Holy Week photos

chema's by the sea resort, samal island

canibad, samal island

lanuza, surigao del sur(f)

(click the photo to see the album)

baguio: a visual display (part 1)

there weren't much photos for the friday that i spent with jan. we had lunch at sizzling plate, which is always a baguio classic. and it would be wrong not to order their famous sans rival. oooozing with buttery goodness! i couldn't get enough of it. the rest of the afternoon was spent at burnham park people watching while eating fishballs and japanese sweet corn. i was wondering if any disc devil would turn up, but there were only college boys playing soccer. skins and shirts. oooh.

mike and rowie finally arrived and were famished as they had not had any lunch. so we went over to o mai khan, which a resto owned by a english classmate in college. and by golly... ang sarap ng pagkain!

we went in search for dessert as jan and i owed mike big time for the free lodging at their clan's transient house. after looking over at several places, we ended up at the manor. the poshest hotel in baguio land. surprisingly, they had quite affordable cakes! not your typical hotel prices. bizu was even more expensive! we ordered a rum ball, a blueberry cheesecake, a belgian chocolate cake and strawberries by the yard. the last two are a definite must have.


the only thing on our itenerary for the trip was a trip to tam-awan village. there were a lot of installation arts and several types of indigenous huts. it was less impressive as i imagined it to be, but we had a good time nonetheless. i would have wanted a portrait taken, but i didn't want to spend money on a sketch of me when i have an artist around. will just wait for jan to draw inspiration from my ethereal beauty (asa pa). hehe!

right across tam-awan village was arko ni apo where artist ben-hur villanueva lives. he also happened to be jan and mike's teacher in grade 6. his family was very accomodating. i was awestruck with him, and his works were really beautiful. i fell in love with a wall clock and his sculpture of abraham sacrificing isaac.

he gave us a tour of his home, introduced us to his two sons, bumbo and jikko. they, too, were artists (good-looking ones at that). his grandchildren laikha and nico (4 y.o, and 7 y.o) inherited the artist genome and were already selling their own sculptures for $20.

it was an honor to have shaken his hand. aaah! and when he becomes a national artist, i can say, i shook that man's hand! he was my bf's teacher. ben-hur, i heart you!
in his home, they have a restaurant called kape diperensya. while we were conversing with him, he offered us free soya coffee. (talk about nice!) since there were other tourists around, he brought over bumbo to entertain us. bumbo explained kape diperensya is a place, "kung saan lahat may diperensya, pwera ang kape." so they would serve it in cups without ears, or chipped saucers. or waites would be cross-eyed. what a concept. haha!



it was difficult leaving the place. but of course we had to hunt for our lunch. when we asked directions from a guy he told us that left would take us back to the city and right would take us to la trinidad.

guess which direction we took? (see prev post)

baguio: a visual display (part 2)

after spending time with (oh my god, it's) ben-hur villanueva and his family, the gang decided to take a left turn wherever that was to go to la trinidad to find the vegetable bagsakan. BUT. we ended with something better. the strawberry farm!!! yahoooo. and there were flowers around too. (but not on this photo). thus saturday was our serendipity drive day. :) and oooh! look at what i am holding. strawberry taho (yum!) and dirty strawberry ice cream (double yum!). strawberry picking was P150/kilo. so we just walked around the fields and bought our stash for P70/kilo. at least i got to pick strawberries is miarayon already. hehe!

on the way back to baguio, mike had this brilliant idea of eating in a korean restaurant since we are in baguio, which has lots of vegetables, and korean food uses up lots of veggies. so that would be great. after bingeing on chicken, we made our way to the batirol cafe.

batirol is actually the ewer where one cooks the chocolate drink. and yummm... wondefully evil hot choco. mmmmm....

since we ate so much, we decided to hike from the batirol place to mile hi shopping center through the camp john hay path. what would a trip to baguio be without the classic-behind-the-pine-tree-photo!

after a long unplanned but wonderful day, we went home to stuff ourselves with our strawberry loot. there was condensed milk, nestle cream with sugar and melted dark chocolate for dipping.

it's absolutely no wonder if i have gained like 3-5 pounds in that week at baguio. because i was eating like every two hours. mehn! but it was a great, great vacation. much much thanks to rowie, mike and jan for making it so relaxing and enjoyable. :)

about last night

the original plan of action was to have dinner with jan's high school barkada. but within the day, two called in sick already, which just leaves jan and andoy. so when jan asked andoy whether to resked, andoy affirmed. thus we ended up watching "the curse of the golden flower."

and typical of chinese emperor movies, you can either brand it as shakespearean or telenova with high budget. i prefer the latter. it an interesting watch, with beautiful costumes and production design. nothing different about the story, as there are the usual elements infidelity, power-grabbing and deception. but it is nicely told, and chow yun-fat did great acting as emperor because you see the character and not the actor. but throughout the latter part of the movie, only one thing keeps going on in my head... "madami talagang tao sa china!" there were thousands and thousands of people (who i assume are really computer-generated) and you just have got to be amazed with their organization skills especially in warfare. ;p

and so the movie was done. jan gets a text from mytch that he is going to andoy's anyway. a call here and there, and we were on our way to jan's house to get the car so we don't have to worry about how to get home. finally, we were at the host's house. and it was just so amusing seeing old high school pals remember their crazy reckless days. and the funniest thing was when they were discussing how our changed plans ended up going back to square one. and oh, somebody else has been relegated to the status of snuffulafugus girlfriend.

around 1pm, we were ready to go home. well, not really, but andoy had to get to work and had an infant to take care of so the three of us decided to ease his suffering for the night by leaving. on the way up to ateneo (we were at barangka), mytch was suggesting that we have a quick look at the UP fair as he was in a nostalgic mode. it was all fine by me since we were in the area anyway.

so we went to UP. MYMP was playing their last song, which was fine by me. i don't really care much for them. though i was singing along with them despite. wehehe!

our quick trip ended up to be a one and half hour stay because mytch was able to get us backstage passes through mojofly. i think he directed their newest video, thus the power to drag two over-aged teenagers to concert.

by two o'clock i was sleepy. the bwah music of the UP bands wasn't exactly helping to keep me awake (yes, i fall asleep listening to metal. sorry, drin). but i was too nahihiya to leave without listening to mojofly because they were the ones who got us in. and mytch was enjoying himself. so. we decided to wait for mojofly to perform. thankfully, they got upped two slots so we can go home earlier.

it was great seeing ali alejandro on the drums. poging talaga. not my type, but poging. i forgot the name of the vocalist, but mytch was saying, "lasing na to." which made it more fun, because nothing beats listening to a pumped-up drunk band singers. the whole time, the kala vocalist was on the stage dancing to the band's beat. they were to be next anyway. he was an adorable teddy bear that i wish i could squeeze but my hands weren't big enough and i wasn't bold enough to approach him. but i was behind him while they were waiting for mojofly to get on stage.

even with my eyes going on auto shut off, i asked that we stay for kala's gig. it's just two songs anyway. so it was fun listening to rock baby rock and jeepney. while this was going on, out came four guys in baston. orange and lemons. only one of them wore shades, and a ten gallon hat with that. so it was kinda funny when he was putting on his guitar because his hat got knocked out. since everything was a haze, i dont know which orange this was.

we left after kala. walking to the car, they were playing panalangin. i'd have stayed for the song just to find out what their second song would be. but it was just too darn late for an old fogey like me and poor jan still had to drive everybody home. so i never found out what they sang.

and it has to mentioned that several troops of taytay boys were there. punks not dead talaga! haha!

inside the car, while i was on my way to dreamland, i had a little smile on my face. it's messed-up plans on nights like this that make life a little more exciting. on valentine's eve too!

old friends

Getting together with the old barkada is always fun.

Toni was as bubbly and beautiful and thoughtful as ever. She gave me the best candies in town. Love ‘em girl.

Erik, after all these years, can give you the most confused information but will definitely know how to care for the needs of a pregnant woman and her infant, thanks to Mead-Johnson.

Bok can always give boys a run for their money for her sports facts. And despite the displeasure for pleasantries, will always be a true friend to those she holds dear.

Ganns and Cathy finally showed up to a gathering. Ganns is still the pun-man, while Cathy gives the most interesting stories. Including I darely say, I bet you! Koreanovela of CSB. ;p

Sadly, Rowie had a trip to Boracay, Karen was busy with work and Chiqui and Ordo are in the states so they couldn’t make it.

Anyways…

Reunions have an unwritten rule to take nostalgic trips down memory lane, where you walk through those days of the recklessness and the invulnerability of youth.

Yet when you listen to your friends tell their stories, you realize how knowledge has now gone beyond theoretical. Each one of us has experienced life in our little nooks of the world, and through those experiences reaped some wisdom.

But the great thing is always the laughter. Whether on strange passport pictures, Filipino movies, non-existent hefans, gay haiku, lousy governance, service charge and RVAT and even doubting the death of old Hollywood stars. It is always the laughter

Thanks for the fun night, guys. :)